The nation’s labor-market recovery stalled in December, as a resurgence of the coronavirus and state-imposed restrictions ended seven months of job growth.
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The nation’s labor-market recovery stalled in December, as a resurgence of the coronavirus and state-imposed restrictions ended seven months of job growth. Employers cut 140,000 jobs last month, the first decline since the pandemic hit the country last spring, the Labor Department said Friday. The jobless rate held steady at 6.7%, far below its April peak of 14.8%—a post-World War II high—but still almost twice its pre-pandemic level. Restaurants and bars drove last month’s decline. Forced to close or scale down because of the virus and cold weather, they cut 372,000 jobs. Other industries highly vulnerable to the spread of virus—hotels, museums, tourist sites—laid off workers, as did government agencies and schools. Most other sectors added jobs last month, but the gains weren’t enough to offset the sharp decline in areas sensitive to the state of the pandemic.
“We have one sector in particular that is undergoing some extreme difficulties right now,” said economist Gus Faucher of PNC Financial Services . “The rest of the economy looks pretty solid.”